A Dead Language (Until This Morning)
by ThereBeDragons17
Summary: One of the Weasley twins' experiments goes rather horribly wrong, and the rest of the school just can't figure out what they're saying...


The Gryffindor Common Room was filled with a mass of bustling and shoving bodies. Students were standing on the staircases, trying desperately to see over the field of heads, and the youngest students were darting between legs to get to the front of the crowd.

Fred and George had found a place to stand clear of the crowd, namely on top of a table. At least that's what it looked like a first- upon second glance one could see that they were, in fact, the eye of the storm. The sea of faces were all craned, expectantly, toward the twins, waiting for whatever they would do next. And they had promised it would be good.

Once the twins were quite satisfied with the multitude of students they had gathered, one of them (probably Fred, but no one could be sure) raised his wand over his head. The whole crowd fell silent as though he had cast a Silencing Charm, with the exception of one kid in the back who overturned the stool he was standing on with a muffled shriek.

"Ladies and gentledudes," the left twin started,

"We have concocted," the right twin continued,

"For your entertainment," the first went on,

"And, as always, our immense amusement," said the second,

"A very simple charm-"

"-Well, we say simple-"

"-That will change the base language of the school."

"To Latin."  
"For our own amusement."

They paused to let that sink in. "If anyone's not up for it, leave now."

Apparently, no one in Gryffindor House had the self-preservation instincts to leave before becoming the guinea pigs for another infamous Weasley experiment.

"Ready?" Asked the twin with his wand raised. The crowd all nodded their heads at once in a strangely hypnotic way.

"In three—"

"Two—"

"One—"

"_Dicete Latinam!_" They yelled in sync.

There was a flash, and absolutely nothing happened. Conversations began breaking out around the room to see if they could speak Latin; they died out when it all came out sounding like English.

"_Ah, well." _Fred said. "_It was worth a shot."_

"_It worked on our brother," _George announced, sounding disappointed._ "We promise it'll be better next time."_

Grumbling, the students filed out of the tower to head to breakfast. Members of other houses stared at them as they passed, chatting happily. Ghosts cast curious glances before gliding away through walls to go gossip with other ghosts about the strange new fad within the Gryffindors. Very few of the Gryffindors seemed to notice the looks and expressions they were warranting from others, and indeed marched right into the Great Hall oblivious.

It took the teachers a few minutes to pick out what exactly was different about the thick stream of chatter in the hall. The Gryffindors seemed to have forgone English for gibberish, but at the same time appeared to understand each other perfectly fine. Highly doubting that the whole house was in on the same prank, and worried not only that the students had been bewitched in some way but that the Professor Umbridge would go ballistic upon finding them conversing in such a manner, Professor McGonagall hurriedly stood up from the staff table. She strode quickly down the length of the Gryffindor table, heading for the twins (for it had undoubtably been the twins) and hoping that whatever they had done was easily reversible. She would hate to see Professor Umbridge furious; she would detest seeing Professor Umbridge gleeful while putting McGonagall's whole house in detention.

The twins saw their Head of House approaching with a frown fixed on her face and, as this was not abnormal, they leaned out into the aisle to greet her.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr. Weasley," she greeted them curtly. "I have no idea what you've done to your fellow students, but I expect you will reverse it, and soon."

"_Convertemus quid_?" asked one (probably George) innocently.

"Don't play games with me, Mr. Weasley, I'm very much not in the mood. As you refuse to make any sense what-so-ever, I will reiterate myself: reverse whatever you have done to your classmates to make them speak in utter gibberish!" The stern witch waited for that to sink in.

"_Dicimus Englesia_," protested the other twin.

"Yes, speak English," McGonagall prompted, not entirely sure what the other twin had said. "And you might think to pass that memo on to the rest of your housemates."

By this time many other students had noticed the exchange between the twins and were trying to listen in without it appearing too obvious. Ernie Macmillan one table over had been running his knife over the same bit of sausage for over a minute, even though he had long since cut it in half. Colin Creevey was rummaging through his book bag, no doubt for his camera, but was trying to do so while watching the argument the whole time.

"_Dicimus Englesia! Nostrum omnes dicimus Englesia!" _protested the first twin, who McGonagall decided was Fred.

The professor huffed in annoyance. "Well, alright then. If you insist on carrying on with your juvenile charade, on your own head be it. When the Professor Umbridge catches wind of this, I'm sure that she will—"

"She will do what, Minerva?" Pipped the falsetto voice of Professor Umbridge, who had walked up, quite unnoticed, behind the arguing threesome.

"Shall put a stop to this nonsense," Professor McGonagall said through gritted teeth, visibly annoyed with the shorter woman. "Or I would assume so, as you seem to take for granted control over every aspect of these students' lives."

Umbridge ignored the last comment and smiled, false and sweet, at the twins. "What seems to be the problem, dears?"

"_Tui vultus_," George wailed in a high, false voice_. "Is fervet!_"

Fred snorted as though this was some unoriginal, supposedly funny comment, but all non-Gryffindors remained at a loss. Dumbledore gazed down, amused, from the staff table. He had figured out by now what was going on, and was perfectly content to let it play out.

Umbridge looked taken aback, but not by the actual content of George's response but the lack of sense in it. "Excuse me?"

"_Ita, tu excusaris_," Fred snipped. "_Iam refer ad cavernam tui._"

"English, if you please, Mr. Weasley, or I will be forced to put you in detention. Not this nonsense you seem intent on speaking." Umbridge looked gleeful at the thought of placing the twins in detention again.

"_Iterum hic imus_," Hermione sighed from across the table.

"You too, Miss Granger? I thought you were more self-composed than to play silly games," McGonagall scolded dryly. Hermione looked quite surprised, as did Harry and Ron, who were sitting on either side of her.

"Answer me this, Mister Weasley, in whichever language you see fit to use: how would you like to spend another two hours in my office this Friday night?"

"_Ille amoenus sonit_," Fred said airily, leaning an elbow on the table. He had no idea what was happening but decided that if Umbridge couldn't understand what he was saying, he'd make the most of it. "_Eritne thea_?"

The Gryffindors laughed, as though this particular piece of gibberish was joke, and Umbridge swelled like a balloon. "I'm warning you, Mister Weasley, anymore of this pseudo-Latin and I'll—"

"_Latina!" _the Weasley twins said at the same time, interrupting the High Inquisitor.

_"__Clades incantation?_"

_"__Ita vero."_

As one, the twins raised their wands and yelled, "SPEAK ENGLISH!"

Umbridge twisted her face into an ugly frown. "If you are attempting to hex me, I am not fooled, nor I am amused. Two students could never overcome a Ministy-Appointed official— _are you two listening to me_?"

For the Weasley twins weren't listening at all, and had gone back to puzzling over what had happened.

_"__Is non facit—"_

_"__Video ille—"_

_"__Cur?"_

_"__Nescio!"_

"That's _it!" _Umbridge shrieked. "Detention to the both of you! And if you are intent on acting like fools in my school—"

"Professor," Dumbledore interrupted, striding down the hall. "Let me. I do believe that I have an inkling of what has happened here, and if I am correct, as I usually am…"

The headmaster waved his wand, and with a blinding flash, the whole hall sat in stunned silence, exactly as before.

"Well that was rubbish," Fred said loudly. When everyone turned to him in shock for having insulted Dumbledore, of all people, he looked immensely disappointed. "Can you all understand us now, then?"

"The perfect opportunity and we _wasted _it, Fred," George moaned as the hall erupted into conversation.

"Very simple and silly mistake on their part, Professor," Dumbledore called over the uproar, his eyes glinting knowingly. "I do believe that Mister and Mister Weasley over here thought that they would bewitch the better part of Gryffindor House to speak Latin. Very clever on their part for getting it to work, I must say. Why they were able to understand us and each other while we were unable to make heads or tails of their speech, it would take a better man than me to tell. But what I do know is that because they effectively reversed their speech so that everything they tried to say in English came out as Latin, they managed the opposite as well; everything they tried to say in Latin came out as English. And spells are, of course, preformed in Latin."

Umbridge stared, stunned, at Professor Dumbledore as he turned and, quite cheerfully, returned to his chair at the staff table.

* * *

**Convertemus quid?**—Reverse what?

**Dicimus Englesia**— We're speaking English (Latin doesn't have a word for English so I used a substitute)

**Dicimus Englesia! Nostrum omnes dicimus Englesia!**— We're speaking English! All of us are speaking English!

**Tui vultus. Is fervet!**— Your face. It burns!

**Ita, tu excusaris. Iam refer ad cavernam tui.**— Yes, you are excused. Now go back to your cave.

**Iterum hic imus**— Here we go again

**Ille amoenus sonit. Eritne thea?**— That sounds lovely. Will there be tea?

**Clades incantation?**—The reverse spell?

**Ita vero**.—Yes indeed.

**Is non facit…Video ille…Cur?…Nescio!**— It didn't work… I can see that… Why?… I don't know!

**All Latin is my own translation because I've taken it for three years now. If you plug it in Google Translate and it comes out all weird, that's because Translate sucks. Honestly. It gave me a word the other day with a letter that doesn't even exist in the Latin language. (J, for those who are interested. In Classical Latin, all Js were written as Is. Very confusing.)**


End file.
